Nahum 1:11 Commentary and Bible Study

‘There is one come out to thee’ – all the commentators think that this refers to Sennacherib. The invasion of Judah by Sennacherib took place in the year 701 BC – ‘that imagineth evil against the Lord, a wicked counsellor.’ Why is he singled out? If it is Sennacherib – and there does not seem to be any other Syrian who would particularly fit this – why is he singled out? It is because what he did was deliberately and willfully a pitch against God. He thought he could destroy monotheism at a stroke. Any lingering interest in the true God, any lingering reluctance to worship the Assyrian gods, could, he thought, be destroyed if he brought down Judah. What he did was a wilfully conceived hostile move against Almighty God. So he is mentioned to remind us that the judgment on Nineveh is not just a judgment upon pagans in darkness, but upon people who are wilfully are set against the Lord and his ways. The Assyrians are complacent and secure, and feel they can never be brought down, and they have got a vast, vast army, yet they shall fall. ‘Thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through.’ That refers to the enemy that God appoints, the Chaldeans. Nahum addresses Nineveh and Judah in turn. ‘Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more.’ That is God saying to Zion, this particular enemy will never afflict you again. It is a word of compassion and sympathy which ought to draw them out to the Lord in recognition of his kindness. The affliction came for good reason, and Israel must recognise this. God was reproving his people for their waywardness, but his reproof had a positive goal, and he had not finished dealing with the nation at that time.